David Crystal is known throughout the world as a writer, editor, lecturer, and broadcaster on language. His work on the language of Shakespeare includes Pronouncing Shakespeare (CUP, 2005), Think on my Words: Exploring Shakespeare's Languages (CUP, 2008), and, with Ben Crystal, Shakespeare's Words (Penguin, 2002), The Shakespeare Miscellany (Penguin, 2005), and The Oxford Illustrated Shakespeare Dictionary (OUP, 2015).

This unique book, the result of more than a decade of research, offers a careful, nuanced account of the sounds and rhythms of individual words, as they might have sounded to the audiences of Shakespeares day, revealing rhymes and puns that are often lost or unclear in many varieties of Present Day English (PDE). In doing so, it provides fresh insights into Shakespeares work for a wide range of readers.

• PART I: INTRODUCTION; PART II: THE DICTIONARY

David Crystal is known throughout the world as a writer, editor, lecturer, and broadcaster on language. His work on the language of Shakespeare includes Pronouncing Shakespeare (CUP, 2005), Think on my Words: Exploring Shakespeare's Languages (CUP, 2008), and, with Ben Crystal, Shakespeare's Words (Penguin, 2002), The Shakespeare Miscellany (Penguin, 2005), and The Oxford Illustrated Shakespeare Dictionary (OUP, 2015).

This unique book, the result of more than a decade of research, offers a careful, nuanced account of the sounds and rhythms of individual words, as they might have sounded to the audiences of Shakespeares day, revealing rhymes and puns that are often lost or unclear in many varieties of Present Day English (PDE). In doing so, it provides fresh insights into Shakespeares work for a wide range of readers.

• PART I: INTRODUCTION; PART II: THE DICTIONARY